Del Corey
Marching On
~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was a private in the army,
forced to march after no sleep,
pushed many miles beyond endurance,
with the road taunting me, throwing
gritty dirt clouds into my eyes,
stretching to forever, up hills,
just when my ten-ton legs
were about to declare bankruptcy,
the sergeant tenored,
"You left your girl at home!"
and we responded like robots, "You're right!"
just as our right foot landed.
And in rhythm he'd sing, "By the telephone!"
"You're right!" "But you don't give a damn!"
"You're right!" "You work for Uncle Sam!"
"You're right!" "Cadence count!" "One, two!"
And on we'd go, our sore eyes opening,
our brains taking off their strait-jackets.
"I know a girl who lives on the hill!"
"You're right!" and our legs sprang
like rabbits, the fire in our feet cooled,
the "I" of us became "We" with the cement
of songs, and our voices rose along
with our sprits, so we knew, even prayed
we could go on forever, together.
How ready am I now for that tenor
to energize my steps again
so I can sing to that wild girl on the hill.
Kenneth Rosen
GREEN FLOWER
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a subtle, leaf-colored blossom,
Four-pointed and simple
As the cosmos, each chartreuse, thin
But not limp, heart-shaped
Petal lightly veined and joined at a violent
Green knuckle where its tip
Narrowed into a swallow's wing,
Its subordinate sepals
Darker green than the abundance
Constituting the trees'
Top-heavy gravity, pale leaves
Threatening to bend
Its slender trunk, against which these
Green flowers crowded
Demurely, yet without cowering,
Dressed for their first
Communion with the envy of heaven
All their April, May
And June lives they had dreamed of.
The air was clear or blue,
Mother Hera off in a cloud sleeping
Somewhere, infant
Heracles easing loose the infinite stars
Of her anger, the Milky Way,
Were all still invisible, so as if instead
Of a witch wiser than
The sky you too were a green flower,
I feigned bravery
And mindless of consequence and truth,
Picked one for you.
NOAH AFTER THE FLOOD
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That night the ocean glistened on the planet's belly
As if spilled liquor in starlight,
Cactus in the deserts of the world gulping with gratitude-
Glub, glub, glub-
Barn that was once an ark now beached on a mountaintop,
Yet settled down okay.
A wordless bird with a branch in her mouth, the eponymous
Olive-bough dove,
Conveyed the pledge the flood was done, Noah
Should go back home and rest
In the sun, that a pot of gold at the end of God's rainbow
Which loved most
To bore Noah to death or disappear after exerting
Its gilded allure
On the old sailor, drunk but not dead, humming obscene tunes
Of periwinkles and baboons,
Checking the neighborhood's upstairs windows for housewives
In gauze peignoirs
As if scanning the heavens for stars with the unwieldy
Astrolabe
Of immortal male hunger and curiosity, fallen asleep beside
An earthworm drowned
On concrete, until the sun arose roaring, yellow with blue
Rings, a tiger in red weather.
THE LIVING RAT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The living rat is reflexively detested, which it
Conceals from itself
By its ferocious commitment to an obscure
Quest, squeezing through cracks
Beneath doors holding its breath under water
For hours. Only its mate
Could endure let alone adore its doughy tail
And colorless fur,
This clearly calculated injustice of birth
Its skittering heart,
By blunt and frenzied fascination with waste,
And intimacy
With fleas and disease, can never transcend.
A rat with a stomach
As fat as a coffee can, swam through a Portland
Woman's plumbing,
And emerged in her bowl: she screamed, leaped,
Slammed the lid,
Flushed the john, and the nothing-if-not-philosophic
Rat swam through her pipes
And traps back to the sewer and all the way home.
Why was it a woman
On the john, not a man? And why does it seem
To fit in with God's plan?
BEETHOVEN'S TRIPLE CONCERTO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We know the tune, the ugly little recluse,
Riddled, rattled with genius
And disease, fiery-furry acne
And the malignant spirochete that turned
Hearing into a dull wall,
An all too explicable infatuation with an orphan
Nephew, the infamous Carl.
Remember Charlus' Morel,
Their Cities of the Plain and angel-of-death
Mushroom soup? In the tutti,
A-flat minor, the terse repetitions that are
Its inexorable beauty, catgut
Whines and brass complains
To an orchestral complement unimaginably
Remote, and yet these solo
Endeavors in C-major, according to my
Liner notes, are fatuous
Crescendos, rustic jokes.
What's a tutti anyway, some kind of toot?
I heard that John Fahy,
That boyishly bold artist-guitarist, died
The other day in a Bay Area
Homeless shelter, Blind Joe Death,
His nom de guerre, blind drunk in the end
And deaf as Beethoven,
Who plink-plink-plunked silence into an echo
Of desires' always otherwise
Ineluctable disasters,
Harmonies the mind recognizes instantly
Or gradually as true.
A DAY AT THE BEACH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ocean swallows, then abandons
Pebbles after banging their heads
Together as if gambling with stone bones,
Uttering a preference for roundness never
Satisfied. The little things
Dry in the sun far less interesting
Than when its work
Was begun, but at least relaxed, restful,
Ready to take things for granted.
But then the water's
At it again. Glass is its litmus test:
It starts off clear and with
Sharp edges, yet by the time the sea is done
Whip-sawing and changing its mind,
It's a chunk of smoke,
A solid blur: like what you get diving in,
Making a big splash, holding
Your breath and trying to see things whole,
And at the critical instant, the crise,
The mind lets go
As if an ocean itself, which like us has to
Do this again and again,
For one more chance at pleasure or the false
Light of revelry, enter a crisis of ecstasy
And gasp for life.
Louisa Howerow
Do You Find Me Beautiful?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had not rained for two weeks. The grass was beginning to yellow and the
weeds were invading the garden. Sometimes, in the morning, dark grey clouds
would form on the horizon, but by midday the promise of rain would disappear
and another layer of humidity would be added to the already hot, heavy
blanket of air that pressed down on the town. The weight of the air divided
the town's inhabitants into the screamers who pummeled the neighborhoods
with angry cries and the sprawlers who retreated into semi-consciousness
waiting for the heat wave to pass.
Susan was the latter. Pushing aside the newspapers at her feet, she reached
for the box of baking soda. Simple, all-purpose, cheap. She liked that.
There were boxes of baking soda in every room of the house. When she had
the time and energy, she used the powder to clean the bathtub; when she didn
't, she showered without looking down. She pushed her small belly against
the cool rim of the sink and poured the baking soda onto her toothbrush. It
was too damn hot, by far.
His voice rose from the kitchen below and hung suspended at the bathroom
door. "You don't give a damn about this place." It seemed incredible that
after all these years, he hadn't learned the simplest things about her.
When they first became lovers, she found him with his tongue down her sister
's throat. She could understand the attraction, but had cried and screamed,
called him names; he had called her unreasonable. It was a drunken
response. A party. Not a commitment.
That night, in bed, she had asked him if he found her beautiful. He thought
she was talking about her sister, when he realized who she meant, he had
laughed and said no. He was right; she wasn't, but it hurt to hear him say
so. She had believed that people in love stretched the truth, found each
other beautiful.
She could hear the sharp clash of pottery against glass as he tried to find
a clean cup in the sink.
"You're always too tired. Too tired."
She wrinkled up her nose and silently mimicked his voice, the same
irritating voice children use when they taunt each other. Too tired. Too
tired. Too tired.
A door slammed downstairs. Let him carry on. She would sleep on the couch
and she would wait. After a time he would come to her, as he always did,
hug her hard, put his hand between her legs and whisper, "Come on, Susan.
Let's make up." And she would not ask him if he found her beautiful.
Jorge Lucio de Campos
O MITO DA PROFUNDIDADE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a Mark Tansey
Manhã contém certo balido
algum corpo intraduzível
Às vezes, posta pela casa
fica entre os livros -
tempo de acordar
(de novo deitar)
e dormir
THE MYTH OF DEPTH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
for Mark Tansey
Morning has a certain bleat -
some undefinable body
At times dispersed by the house
it stays among the books
It´s time to wake up
(to go to bed again)
It's time to sleep
ENIGMA
~~~~~~
a Wallace Stevens
Eram dois répteis
contra os grãos
daquele deserto
de poros e arestas
O maior me odiava
com insultos e salivas
- unhas, espinhos
rabos sagitais -
O outro me amava
seus olhos de couro
brilhavam na noite
lembrando os cartazes
de Las Vegas
ENIGMA
~~~~~~
for Wallace Stevens
There were two
reptiles on the grits
of that desert of
pores and edges
The big one
hated me with
insults, spittles
nails, prickles and
arrowlike tails
The small one
loved me: his leather
eyes - shining in the
night - reminded
the posters of
Las Vegas
J.B. Mulligan
chronographies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
i
The plains of time, the oceans of event,
the certain, inexact topographies
of past and future spread, the fall and rise
of ant and empire, each specific point
as far away from what is equidistant
in the latitude and longitude of days,
each arbitrary measurement precise
through all the scattered vistas of occurrence.
The nomad wanders, disturbing antique sand
or stirring dust to be: his footprint fades
before the step of memory or dreams
occurs. So, on the endless highway, crowds
detect an echo, in a second's sound,
of travelers gone, or here, or still to come.
ii
The waves of time, the oceans of event,
the push and countercurrent as a boat
tacks port and starboard, grunts to come about
and face the storm - or, as a calm descends,
worries a wandering breeze to lend a hand.
The end is not for voyage or for port,
for one is endless, and the other waits
in undiscovered countries of the wind.
The waves and rings and ripples surge and swell,
large and small, and mingle, bearing off
in a third direction influence of both,
so days erupt and wither, echoes of
each other, and the flow and flux of all
is bound together in a single breath.
unmasking
~~~~~~~~~
When all the masks have fallen
like leaves to the side of the road,
the mask of the skull is left
white and smiling, like a moon
we have never seen, though it
pulled at all our tides.
We must wear it, smiling,
before we can strip it off,
revealing what might or might
not be the end of masks,
the final skull that will,
like a snowflake, dissolve.
Laocoon
~~~~~~~
They came across the sea,
light a shifting filigree
on sinuous, urgent coils.
They seized my sons and I;
I threw my curses at the sky
above my sons? weak wails
of terror. "Bitch!," I roared.
"You?d hurl this raging Grecian horde
over us like a wave!"
They dragged us down from light -
Troy rippled slowly out of sight -
to history?s brute grave.
(The rest has not been known:
the goddess turned us into stone
and left us alive inside
to dream of home, to hear
their dying cries inside stone ears,
close by, and always loud.)
painting the sky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sacred venom of the secular dream.
The flashbulb eyes and expertly painted smiles.
The cut of purity's cold, precision blade
through unimagined meat, and all the while
the lie strides into the spotlight, assuring the crowd,
"The truth is nothing more than what it seems."
Cheers like tickertape. A mosaic of signs
and fists and faces, lettered crudely, and clear:
reality awaits a stamped approval.
And comes with a toggle switch, for if the stars
oppose the chosen sky or interval,
all heads will bravely turn, they shall not shine
except as fits the theory - without this,
the world would just be running in reverse.
watching the river at Mobius Point
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The river flows; the shape
stays, but changes.
Trees ring each year,
slow, crooked roots
grope for water.
Even the continents?
planetary yawn
moves us further apart.
We wander
through the valley of our bodies
toward death,
and dream there is a stillness
there.
Some sort of a hub.
There is only one wheel,
with a center
everywhere.
We are only mathematicians
or we would know this.
Alexandre L. Amprimoz
The Secrets of Saints
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I
En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me veía,
ni yo miraba cosa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.
San Juan de la Cruz
Daring distortions
lead to great work,
but in art
no one finds
the edge of the divine
without the secrets of saints
for they only turn the mind
to the vast precision
of Byzantine basilicas.
El Greco in Venice
drank the wine of Titian.
Later, too proud to deal
with death or even carry on
the study of minor miseries,
he nailed spirits on canvas.
II
The inner gravity of icons
gives that holy twist
toApostle St. James the Less.
Others called it mannerism.
But Domenicos knew
how hard it is to pass
from one tempest soul
to tornadoes that touch the eye
with the blinding light of mystery,
for this is the drift of elongated figures,
ever straining upward,
into eternity,
harder than passing passion and restraint
into hurricanes,
with the gaze of poverty.
III
He must have known of men
as Rilke was to know of angels;
those catastrophic architects
of castles on quick sand.
And what did the Torquemadas
hear in the rumbling
of mystic souls, those elongated,
taller lovers of God?
He must have considered
across some suicidal spring
Juan de la Cruz in dark
toledo dungeons;
and in Valladolid
he must have felt the torment
of bleak prisons
where Luis de León
burned like a meek candle
consumed by a fever
asymptotic to the eternal.
IV
After the Golden Age,
after his best work,
he was Toledo
and he was Spain.
Like an angel,
he saw the dead
as everlasting,
the stark spirit
Of his old age,
his best art.
V
Finally understanding
echo as his path
to that infinite called aleph,
he painted St. Francis in Ecstasy
eighty times eleven.
Always gathering light,
Like Theresa of Jesus
he built an inner Castle.
This is where the question
must be asked:
what did he leave us?
Perhaps the sweet confusion
of The Book of Splendor
and the splendor of books.
He must have seen
what begins to glow
in moments of meditation
and wondered if it was yours
or if it was mine.
LB Sedlacek
Abandoned Car
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An abandoned car by the side of the road
sits in wait of gasoline or a battery
-- or the return of its owner.
If it's lucky enough to get towed
to the nearest gas or service station
it may have a chance to live again.
Dark blue with a wide trunk for a heavy load
it can carry just about anything,
and maybe it already has.
An abandoned vehicle sits on the side of the road
question is - will anyone return to claim it,
or was it left by the highway for a reason.
Asphalt Picnics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wide open back yard
Green grass a blanket
Sunlight a cap
Red wine, Sandwiches
Waiting to be devoured
Like a rookie at a
Unwatched baseball game
Or public apologies --
Whispered, accompanied by
Red faces, sweaty palms
And plastic knives, spoons
Paper cups
Boiling with sneezes,
Sighs, smiles
Or beeping alarms
Signaling summer's end.
Beneath the Surface
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jellyfish soul
wrapped around seaweed hearts
squeezing with spaghetti fingers
fueled by
roaring winds,
and turbulent tides
carrying driftwood, sea glass
ships, and life
beneath the surface
hidden behind sand castles
of beige and gray
blending into blue, green
the clean depths
becoming
vapid pools
of debris
that turn and change
with the tide
that can only reach
so far for so long
before returning
in the same direction
as it came
releasing its watery fingers
upon the sand
until it inches forward
and tries again.
Car Interiors
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A new face at the window is
Unexpected, but welcome
As steaming hot cocoa
Or imported tea or soft
Cloth comfort and bucket seats
Taking cruise control for
Granted, neglecting mileage,
Avoiding oil changes
Or the same old arguments
About why some live in
Mansions while others
Sleep in cars.
7-11 Connections
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My parents stayed in room 711
while they were in San Francisco
but they didn't get the connection
-- see we don't have very many
7-11's in the south where they're
from although they do have
some in Virginia
'cause the last time I was there
-- right outside of D.C.
(the District of Columbia)
I stopped in one off Quaker Lane
and I bought a Coke, a Ginger Ale
and a Peppermint Patty
plus 3 scratch tickets for the lottery;
when I scratched the tickets with my quarter
I didn't win at all
'cause the odds are against me
as they were for the men who escaped
from Alcatraz - a.k.a. the Rock - in the
icy water not far from the Golden Gate Bridge
-- my parents got to Alcatraz by ferry on a tour
with their friends from home - North Carolina --
since they bought tickets in advance by phone
after getting the phone number off the Internet
which holds the key to lots of information
but not without a doubt proof
of whether of not any Alcatraz escapees
ever survived - lived --
but if it were you and you made it
off the Rock
would you tell anyone just so you could go
back to jail albeit as a famous criminal
-- probably not 'cause I don't know about you
but I like having the freedom to buy Slurpees or whatever
at 7-11's whenever I please, wherever I please
even if I have to cross a state line to do it.
Vladimir Orlov
BUSINESS AS USUAL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The world omnipotent tyrant
called business interest
is so single-minded about his
daily work of sinister oppression
that he wedges the floodgate
of human conscience shut,
closed off to splashing cataracts
of drowned scruples and
bubbling thoughts of
charity, repentance and affection,
of all those natural human thoughts
which ought not to play second fiddle
to business avarice and savagery
as usual.
NEVER WAKING UP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wake up! Wake up!
The whole world is up and running!
This unrelenting cry of a century-long
tritely jarring slogan
unloads itself into the deafness
of our locked ears and dies away
in their resonant sepulchers of slumber.
This cry of a shrill despair
saps our waning vigor and gnaws at
the backbone of an evaporating resolve,
as we walk in the centenary garden
rustling with blossoms of cherry gold,
flowers of chamomile silver,
stalks of fern emerald,
leaves of dew-drop diamond,
in the garden which is yet to grow
from the ashes of the fire-scarred
waste dumping ground.
THE BELLS, THE BELLS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A poet called them quirks of fate,
his gifted critic termed them
a bestowal of heaven
too sacred to be leased to
those playing dirty games.
As I rush through my meager mind,
I feel inveterately obliged to own up
to falling into an obsessed demeanor
of a self-invoked ridicule bordering on awe
and reaching out to the depths
of my puny though aspiring soul.
I call God's vengeance on
my own silly and unrighteous self
used to falling so easily for
other people's shallow thoughts.
Feverishly do I grab at
the evaporating integrity of my
managerial mind and mental vision.
Meekly do I clutch at
what is left of it -
but only a waft of whistling wind
makes me grasp at the empty air
and wallow in it.
Its tosses now float all around
and a jingling cry
degrading in a wow's whisper
is all my wounded soul's bells
are capable of tinkling forth.
The bells, the bells.

Del Corey
Georgia Rejection
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last evening, again, you rebuffed
my shy touches and nudges,
and, again, your sharp elbow
punctuated your no, your boundaries,
your circumference of trespass,
so resentment and internal tears
flooded my separate bed, and my dreams
converted it to a coffin, like those
that floated down the streets
of Albany, remember?
So all night I was this stiff corpse,
escaping my shallow grave, reeling
downstream, thumping doors
of strangers, spinning in currents
of self-pity, out of your city limits,
escaping your influence, ready to rest
anywhere away from you.
And then the sun ribboned through,
pearling your smile with promises
of today's enchantment, enticing me
to rise, and come alive again.

A New Age: The Centipede Network Of
Artists, Poets, & Writers
An Informational Journey Into A Creative Echonet [9310]
(C) CopyRight "I Write, Therefore, I Develop" By Paul
Lauda

Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
just for writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is creative. A
place for anyone to participate in, to share their poems, and
learn from all. A place to share *your* dreams, and philosophies.
Even a chance to be published in a magazine.
The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
an audience, and with the help of Klaus Gerken, Centipede soon
started to grow, and become active on many world-wide Bulletin
Board Systems.
We consider Centipede to be a Public Network; however, its a
specialized network, dealing with any type of creative thinking.
Therefore, that makes us something quite exotic, since most nets
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Feel free to drop by and take a look at newsgroup alt.centipede

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